Hiding from the Coven (Daughters of the Warlock 2)

“Is he... alive?” I couldn’t help but ask, gesturing to him.

I cleared my throat, my belly quivering with nerves. It wouldn’t sit well with me if I was responsible for his death.

“Oh, yes. Just unconscious,” my father said.

I resisted the urge to run to my father. I wanted him to tell me that we’d fix this, that everything was going to be okay. I wanted him to make me feel the way all dads were supposed to make their daughters feel: safe, protected, taken care of.

But that was a childish expectation, grown out of a childhood with no father. I had always taken care of myself. Sure, Mother had been there to teach us, to guide us, but I was the one taking care of her mistakes and it would have been nice, for once in my life, if someone could have been the one to take care of me.

I released a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and shook my head. Now was not the time to be thinking of such things. I needed to focus on the task at hand. I couldn’t let myself get distracted by fantasies of what this show of solidarity meant for my relationship with Matlock. There was a good chance it meant nothing at all.

Instead, I straightened to my full height and looked him in the eye. “Thank you for coming when you did,” I said. I was still angry at him for not standing up for me in the trial, but I could thank him when he deserved it.

“Yes,” Tavlor said, sidling up next to me. “Rasslor had almost convinced Ava that you were deliberately hiding away while they carried out the sentence.”

Matlock looked at me, his gaze wary. “You believed I would do something like that to you?”

Discomfort crawled over my skin. “Well... I know you were shocked when I turned up, and I’ve been nothing but grief for you since I revealed who I am to you...” I let my voice trail off. I didn’t understand why I was having difficulty explaining this to him. I wasn’t trying to be rude, only honest.

Before I could finish, my father grabbed me up in a rough, weird hug that had my heart soaring for long moment while he held me. He didn’t say anything, but he hugged me as though he would never let me go.

He rested his fuzzy chin on the top of my head, his shoulders hunching forward. I closed my eyes, trying to memorize this. I wasn’t sure if I would get another moment like this again. He smelled like musk with a hint of cinnamon. He was growing his beard. His hands were rough, with calluses on his palms. He was warm.

I liked hugs from him. A strange thing to realize, but true all the same. I hoped he never let me go. I hoped this wasn’t an emotional response in a highly emotional moment. I hoped it actually meant something meaningful.

Then he pulled back, clearing his throat roughly.

“I suppose we need to sit down and have a quick talk,” he said.

He didn’t wait for a response, simply strolled over and sat on the couch, and then looked up at me.

Tavlor receded to the corner of the room, becoming strangely invisible in his stillness, but I knew he was there. And it was comforting, despite the strangeness of the situation. I liked the fact he didn’t need to involve himself in something that wasn’t about him. His ego, his pride, wasn’t wounded because Matlock and I needed to talk without him.

I sat down opposite my father and smiled. “We’re back where we started, I suppose,” I said, looking around. The room looked the same and yet felt different to me. “This is where we had our first conversation.”

I was trying to make a joke, to lighten the conversation, but my father’s lips turned down instead. His bushy eyebrows furrowed and it almost looked like two fuzzy caterpillars were crawling over his eyes.

“Yes, in retrospect, I did not handle that conversation well at all,” he said. He cleared his throat like he was trying to find the right words and was coming up empty. “I was... conflicted, and felt incredibly guilty for not being there for you when you were younger.”

“Were you? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, missing the sarcasm in my voice. “So many times through the past twenty years I’d wished that I’d run away with your mother when she’d asked me to. Had a life with her... But I’d been raised to be the High Warlock, to see the responsibility of my mantle as more important than any selfish needs or wants. I also... didn’t want to hurt Charity. Back then I believed her to be a decent woman, and I did care for her, to a degree.”

I snorted, and he smiled.

“Well, yes, I can imagine it’s hard for you to see my point there, but people change a lot in twenty-five years, and well... she was clever in hiding some of her personality traits that I did not agree with,” he continued. “But once we were married, it was too late. At that point, she felt safe enough to reveal who she really was. I did not agree with some of her more intense beliefs, but since we could not have children and since she was my wife, I did not think anything of it.”

My heart tugged in my chest for the lost dreams, and love, and the life that could have been.

“Why did you stay with her?” I asked. This was the question I had been dying to ask, and yet, it almost felt too intimate for me to know. Was it my business as his daughter? “I mean... my mother came back three times after you were married.”

“This was something I always regretted also,” he said. His eyes dropped to his lap and he turned his hands over so he could look at his palms. “I had my chances, more than one. But in those early years, Charity had multiple pregnancies that she lost... or so I was told. I didn’t want to abandon her...” He shook his head. “I made mistakes on all sides. As much as I did not particularly like my wife, I should not have been unfaithful. I just felt trapped and your mother, well, I saw her as my own version of freedom.”

He trailed off, his lips pinching on the side.

“How ironic,” I said, though I knew it wasn’t his fault that my mother had hidden us from him.

“I know. I’m so sorry, Ava. If your mother had told me about you, or your sisters, things would have been different. I promise.” His eyes snapped up and locked with mine, as though he wanted me to know he meant what he said.